It’s Official: I’m a Scaredy Cat (Meooooow!)

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It’s Official: I’m a Scaredy Cat (Meooooow!)

Spooky season is again upon us, and every year I attempt to convince myself I really am not that easily terrified. The truth is, I’m not a fan of horror, never have been; yet for some reason, for years I’ve been friends with people who are. Whether it’s a fear of missing out, or just wanting to be in on the conversation, I keep trying to make it through the latest horror movie or series or book that a lot of folks I know are talking about. And almost every single time (with a few lucky exceptions), I crash and burn in the endeavor.

Unfortunately, 2023’s attempt involved a lot of flames and falling apart.

I started with a preorder of Whisperwood by Alex Woodroe, which came out this summer (though I didn’t read it until last month). The excellent news on this one is that I was able to enter a giveaway for an original art print based on something in the story, and I won, and it is glorious. See!

Anyway, I swear I will proceed with no spoilers for any of these books, but also be very aware: If you don’t like horror, these titles realistically shall not be your cup of tea. I also won’t provide any of the literally gory details (though that part will absolutely help explain the metaphorical explosions and over-hard landings).

So, Whisperwood caught my attention because it’s set in Romania and includes creatures from Romanian folklore, and mythology is a subject I’ve always had interest in. Either I didn’t tune in enough, or the marketing folks deserve the understatement of the year award, but I truly didn’t realize just how quickly this tale would switch from intrigue and suspense and legends to Holy cheese and crackers, there are literal human body parts flying!

And with this sudden shift — and the rest of the book rocking back and forth between a background sense of something dangerous or unexplained about to happen, and then catapulting into very gruesome scenes — I began to understand the real reason I stay away from horror. I can handle the idea of monsters attacking and being frightening-looking — because I have a difficult time picturing the details of written things (even well described written things) in my mind’s eye. But, because I have sensory dysphoria, the idea of pain and fear and suffering and anatomically correct body deconstructions are the parts of horror that just completely freak me out. Where my brain falls behind in the visuals, it goes into overdrive on the tactile sensations (even fictional ones).

So, this meant that, although Whisperwood was interesting and not objectively “bad,” I knew it was definitely not my thing.

Therefore, what did I do next? Well, I dove into The Woodkin by Alexander James, a book with a cover so disturbing I actually had to fold a piece of paper over it (sorry!) and leave facedown on my desk when I wasn’t reading, a tale of hikers disappearing under mysterious circumstances and something quite eerie in the forest. Yup, perfect choice.

Now, earlier this year I tried to read Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and was intensely disappointed by the incredibly unrealistic portrayal of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. I will totally give The Woodkin the praise it deserves for a realistic portrayal of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Okay, yes, except for the people going missing because of the weird thing in the woods. At least I felt much more satisfied after reading the beginning, compared to how many times I rolled my eyes with Wild.

Anyway, maybe I was already feeling gun-shy, but I’ll come clean — at the first sign of something very nasty (and entirely traditional horror fodder) taking place, I skipped to the end of The Woodkin and found out whether the characters I cared about made it out or not. Again, no spoilers; but I was, unfortunately, so unsettled by what I suspected happened in those intervening pages that I didn’t even breathe a sigh of relief.

My next selection really threw me in the deep end, and, again, this could have been my fault, for not paying enough attention to the promotional material; but the anthology Things Magical Under the Moon by Alexis Carroll and Amanda Stoctkon is a great deal darker than I was prepared for. And I do want to stress, both these authors are very talented and certainly spin intriguing yarns; their choice of content and/or approach just does not jive for me.

All of these books, by the way, I gifted to my local Little Free Library, since taste is subjective and I’m sure what doesn’t work for me will totally scratch the right itch for somebody else.

My last disappointment (and, I feel, the end of this experiment) came with Girl of Nightmares, the sequel to Anna Dressed in Blood, which I really enjoyed a few months ago. Yes, the plot for Girl of Nightmares is very different from the original, and there are new characters and some more tropes, but while the premise and feel was a shift, most of the style and relatability I liked in Anna was present here. What gave me quite an unpleasant jolt was the downright macabre twist the sequel took at about the 70% mark; considering the precedents set by the original — which did have a few moments that made me squirm — the fact I found this much worse really says something about my thresholds. I don’t even know how this follow-up ended, because I stopped about 40 pages from the conclusion.

I cleansed my palate by reading an Adventure Time comic to Muffin.

And now I feel the scientific evidence is overwhelming, and the confirmation can be made: I am a scaredy-cat. It appears anything above PG-13 will give me all the bad vibes, and continuing to pretend that I can weather this is not advised.

So, I will have to just deal with “missing out,” and the fact there will be cultural references floating around me that I simply won’t get.

At least my skin will lie flat on my body, and my nerves will remain smooth.

Sorry, not sorry, horror fans. It quite literally isn’t you; it is most definitely me.

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